Raining Cats & Dogs (A Melanie Travis Mystery) (9 page)

“Or maybe one of the Poodles will teach them a lesson,” I said hopefully.

Sam’s gaze flickered upward. The black cat had climbed a tree next door, then dropped down gracefully onto the top of the fence. Even now, he was balancing on the edge, peering down at the dogs sleeping peacefully beneath him in the grass.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Sam said.

Me either, I thought with a sigh.

T
he mood at Thursday’s obedience class was subdued.

As I’d done the previous week, I arrived a few minutes early. Though the parking lot at the Y was full, none of the class members was standing outside talking. Nobody was exercising their dogs or greeting new arrivals. I unloaded Faith, and we headed directly inside.

Nearly everyone was already gathered in the big room. Steve was finishing laying the mats, while the others were clustered in small groups speaking in hushed tones. I didn’t see Paul and Cora or Kelly and Boss. Neither absence surprised me. I imagined Paul probably had family obligations to attend to, and Kelly seemed to make a habit of being late.

I took off my jacket and set it down on a metal folding chair with my purse and the thermos of water I’d remembered to bring. As I straightened and turned to face the room, I felt the tug of Faith’s leash. She’d left my side to touch noses with Mark’s Cairn, Reggie, who was straining at the end of his leash to reach her.

Mark reeled the little terrier in and beckoned me over. He was standing with Stacey, Julie, and Minnie. Their circle opened up to accommodate us.

Jack, the Doberman, lying complacently at Julie’s heel, didn’t even stir. Coach, the Schnauzer, cocked his head at Faith and wagged his stumpy tail. Bubbles, Stacey’s Papillon, danced excitedly in place until given permission to come over and say a proper hello. Everyone waited until the dogs had settled again, then conversation resumed.

“We were talking about Paul’s Aunt Mary,” Stacey said. “What a horrible tragedy. I spoke with Paul yesterday. There’s going to be a memorial service on Saturday at Saint Michael’s in Greenwich. He wanted the class, especially those of us who’d visited Winston Pumpernill, to know that anyone who wanted to attend was welcome. Steve will probably make a general announcement, but I just wanted to make sure that the information got passed along to those of us who were there last week.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate your letting me know.”

“Paul is taking Cora,” Stacey added. “To a memorial service. Can you believe it?”

“I can,” Minnie replied. “Why wouldn’t he? His aunt loved that Corgi. In fact, she loved all our dogs. That’s probably why so many of us feel like we bonded with Mary, even though we hardly knew her. Maybe we should go as a group and take all the dogs with us. You know, like a show of support for Paul and Cora.”

“No way,” Julie said firmly. “All these dogs in a church? That wouldn’t be a show of support, it would be a side show. Paul would be mortified.”

“Sorry, Minnie,” Mark weighed in. “I’m with Julie on this one. I know Coach goes everywhere with you, but the last thing we’d want to do is to intrude on the dignity of the service.”

Minnie looked annoyed. “Speak for yourself. Coach and I are perfectly dignified.”

“Goodness,” Stacey said with a giggle. “Over-identify much? You make him sound like your date, not your dog.”

Minnie’s expression turned thunderous. She snapped Coach’s leash with her left hand and the Schnauzer abruptly stood up. Minnie spun on her heel and the two of them left.

Frowning, Mark watched them go. “That was cruel.”

“That was honest,” Stacey replied. “Besides, sometimes cruel is the only thing Minnie understands.”

The first time I’d met these people, I’d pegged Stacey as the most innocuous member of the group. Now I found myself reevaluating my initial impression. Stacey might have looked harmless, but she clearly was capable of giving as good as she got.

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, we all heard a clatter outside in the hallway, signaling the arrival of Kelly and Boss. The pair came skidding around the corner into the room. The Akita was leading the way and dragging his hapless owner along behind.

“Lord, I wish she’d get that dog properly leash broken,” Julie muttered. “It’s really not such a difficult concept.”

“Maybe you should offer to give her lessons,” said Mark.

Julie rounded back on him; she’d heard the same snide edge to his tone that I had. But Mark merely raised his eyebrows and shrugged innocently as if he couldn’t understand why his words might have caused any offense. Julie’s lips thinned into a hard line, but she didn’t say a word.

“Look!” Kelly announced, heading toward us across the mats. She held up her arm and showed us her watch. “I’m not late! Class doesn’t even start for another whole minute.”

As she drew near, our group broke apart, all of us giving her plenty of room. None of us wanted to let our dogs stand in close proximity to the Akita. We were too concerned to be subtle about it; Kelly had to have noticed our withdrawal.

She stopped just outside the circle, snatched up Boss’s leash, and said in a surprisingly authoritative tone, “Sit!”

To everyone’s relief, the big brindle dog sat. Kelly beamed at him happily, then looked up at us. “We’ve been practicing.”

“It shows,” said Stacey. “Good job.”

I wasn’t going to be the one to mention that consistency was the key to a well-behaved dog. And that any dog who was still capable of dragging its owner around still had a long way to go where training was concerned.

“What’d I miss?” Kelly asked, including all of us in her smile. “You all were talking about Paul, weren’t you?”

Her handling skills might have been lacking, but Kelly was cute and perky. It was hard not to want to like her. Mark immediately angled himself in her direction, but Julie spoke up first.

“Yes, we were,” she said. “There’s a memorial service for his aunt on Saturday.”

“I know. I read about it in the paper.”

So far, the
Greenwich Time
had gotten several days’ worth of front page stories out of the murder. Greenwich was no longer a small town, but, thankfully, violent crime was still rare. The police were investigating Mary Livingston’s death. According to the paper, they had yet to come up with any leads.

“Several of us are thinking about going,” said Mark. “We’d like to offer a show of support for Paul.”

“How very nice of you,” Kelly said.

She did not, I noted, offer to join us.

Stacey shook her head sadly. “I only wish there was more we could do.”

“About what?” asked Steve, walking up to stand beside Kelly.

She greeted him with a small smile, then turned back to the group. Boss, I was interested to see, didn’t react to Steve’s intrusion upon their space. Akitas tend to be very protective of their people. Boss’s failure to challenge the situation led me to think he was probably accustomed to seeing Kelly and Steve together.

“Paul,” Julie was saying. “We all feel terrible about what happened. Even more so, I suppose, because we were there at the time.”

“That’s what’s so hard for me to understand,” said Mark. “It was the middle of a Sunday afternoon in a semiprivate facility. We certainly weren’t the only visitors; there were plenty of people around. Nurses, administrators, you name it. People were all over that building. How could someone have been murdered without anyone noticing?”

I’d been wondering the same thing myself. Under the circumstances—with all of us being so close to the situation—it was hard not to contemplate what might have been done differently.

“It had to have been a crime of opportunity,” I said. “Paul’s aunt must have been taken by surprise. Mark is right, the place was full of people. If she’d struggled or cried out, surely someone would have heard.”

“Who says someone didn’t notice?” asked Julie.

“That’s a gruesome thought.” Kelly let a hand drift down to rest on her dog’s broad head. “And no one’s come forward with any information. Don’t you think someone would have if they knew something?”

“Not if they were afraid,” said Julie.

We all turned and looked at her.

“Afraid of what?” asked Steve.

“You know, like those reports you see on the news about abuse of the elderly that takes place in nursing homes. What if something like that is going on and the murder happened as a cover-up?”

An interesting possibility, I thought. Stacey disagreed.

“I don’t buy it,” she said. “We’ve all been inside Winston Pumpernill any number of times, and it seems like an exemplary facility. Besides, most of those stories are about neglect as much as abuse. Older people who are alone in the world and don’t have relatives to check up on them and serve as their advocates. Mary wasn’t alone, and she certainly wasn’t helpless. Paul would have done anything for her. All she would have had to do was ask.”

“She may not have asked for help,” said Mark, “but she obviously needed it. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be dead now. What a shame for Paul that it had to happen during our visit. I think it would have been easier on him, and less shocking certainly, if he hadn’t been on the premises at the time.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “And it wouldn’t surprise me if the reason the murder happened was precisely
because
we were there.”

Now it was my turn to draw stares from the rest of the group. Steve and Stacey looked surprised, but Julie stiffened visibly. Even Jack felt her sudden anger. He pushed himself up off the floor and stood by her side. Automatically, her hand dropped to the middle of the Doberman’s back, soothing him with a touch.

“Are you accusing one of
us
of being involved in Mary Livingston’s murder?” she asked.

“Not necessarily.” Not being a big believer in coincidence, however, it wasn’t as though the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.

Kelly crossed her slender arms over her chest. “Then what exactly are you saying?”

“The same thing I mentioned a minute ago. That this was most likely a crime of opportunity. And that our being there was what gave the murderer his chance to act.”

Several years earlier at a dog show, I’d confronted a killer in the handlers’ tent, a place where exhibitors prepare their dogs to be shown, and one that is normally teeming with activity. I’d had the bad luck, however, to encounter the murderer while Best in Show was being judged. There had been several hundred people on the dog show grounds, many within shouting distance. But their attention had all been focused elsewhere, and I’d nearly lost my life as a result. It was obvious to me that there were certain similarities between my misadventure and the event that had taken Mary’s life.

“Think about it,” I said. “Not only were many of the residents and much of the Sunday staff in the sunroom because of our scheduled visit, but once Minnie and Coach began to perform, even more people came into the room to watch. Areas of the building that would normally have had staff on duty, like the residential hallway where Mary’s room was located, were probably pretty empty. Certainly emptier than usual. Our presence gave the killer the opening he was looking for.”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” Minnie said. She and her Schnauzer were standing behind me and off to the right; I hadn’t realized she’d drifted back to join the group. “I guess that makes me feel better
and
worse.”

“I can understand the worse part,” said Stacey. “But how on earth can anything make you feel better about our role in what happened?”

Minnie gazed around the circle of faces. “Coach and I were the ones out in the middle of the room putting on a show. Everyone was watching us. If that isn’t an ironclad alibi, I don’t know what is.”

Kelly gasped softly. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to her until right that moment that any of us might need an alibi. Actually, I found myself wondering why Minnie had been so quick to think of it herself.

“Hold on, Minerva,” said Steve. “Before you start thinking you’re off the hook, you might want to wait to see what the police come up with as a time of death. A few minutes earlier or a few minutes later and you could be as likely a suspect as any of us.” He paused to send her a meaningful stare. “Or, perhaps, even more so, if you think about it.”

Minnie’s lips stretched into a smile, but behind them her teeth were gritted. For a moment, tension zinged between the two of them like a wire drawn tight. Then Mark cleared his throat loudly and stepped into the breach.

“You seem to have given things quite a bit of thought,” he said to me. “You’re not in law enforcement by any chance, are you?”

“No.” I laughed self-consciously. “I’m a private-school teacher.”

“One who solves mysteries on the side,” said Steve. “Isn’t that right?”

I stared at him in surprise. Where had that come from?

Steve looked rather pleased with himself. “We have a small class here. In fact, most of us have been together so long, it almost feels like an extension of family. So I imagine I can be forgiven for checking out the backgrounds of the people who want to join us.”

“You did a background check on me?” I asked, incredulous.

“Oh, nothing so formal as that. I got on the Internet and ran a Google search. I was surprised to see how many times your name had appeared in the local papers.”

Well, yes, I thought glumly. There was that.

“So you’re some sort of amateur detective?” Julie didn’t sound impressed.

“Only by default,” I admitted. “It’s more like I seem to have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I guess that explains it,” said Mark.

“What?”

“We’ve been visiting Winston Pumpernill for months now, and nothing terrible has ever happened before.”

Stacey nodded. “You said we were responsible for Mary’s death. And it looks like we were, since we’re the ones who took you there with us.”

“Hey, people,” Steve said sternly. “I don’t like the direction this conversation is heading.”

That made two of us, I thought. And things wouldn’t have gone that way at all if he hadn’t brought the topic up in the first place.

“Rather than believing the worst of Melanie, I think we ought to be grateful that she’s here.”

Grateful? That couldn’t be a good sign.

“Who better to get on the case,” Steve continued triumphantly, “than a member of our very own class?”

“The police,” I answered quickly before anyone else had a chance to chime in. “They’re exactly the right people for a situation like this.”

“They are when they can get the job done,” said Kelly. “But it doesn’t always happen. Look at the Martha Moxley case. It took the Greenwich police more than twenty-five years to solve that one.”